The obstetrician tells you that the baby has a fractured clavicle. Your first question is “How is this possible?"

To answer the question, it's important to understand why a baby's clavicle could become fractured during the course of delivery.

There are some instances during a delivery where the baby gets stuck during the delivery process. This is known medically as shoulder dystocia.

This is a life-threatening emergency.

Obstetricians are trained to perform different maneuvers in an attempt to get the stuck shoulder unstuck. One of the last-resort maneuvers to try and get the baby out emergently is to intentionally fracture the clavicle.

By fracturing the clavicle, the shoulders collapse enough to get the shoulder unstuck. Once the shoulders collapse the baby can now pass through the birth canal leading to delivery.